{"items": [{"author": "David", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338235726274559", "anchor": "fb-338235726274559", "service": "fb", "text": "How do you know if somebody is working for below market rates? Maybe they're working for 80% of the median market rate for the field, but they're not very good, or maybe they're working for 110% of the median, but they could be making 200% median if they worked for a for-profit.", "timestamp": "1353014182"}, {"author": "Hollis", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338239282940870", "anchor": "fb-338239282940870", "service": "fb", "text": "An awful lot of us in the non-profit world work for \"below market rates\". It's partly because private donors mostly don't want to pay for salaries; they want to pay for capital improvements and one-time campaigns.
I'm really uncomfortable with two ideas I see you espousing here.
(1) the idea that people who are willing to work for less do better work. This leads to a race toward the bottom, and after a while you see people leaving. I do great work (according to my peers in the field) and my job hasn't seen a raise since 1995. My paycheck is the same dollar value (except for taxes) as the person holding my job 17 years ago got. Does this make me a better worker? If I leave to take a job that will allow me to afford a house and children someday, will my employer be able to hire someone better than me by offering less money, or even the same money?
(2) the idea that, because the *mission* of an organization is a charitable one, the people *working there* should have mandatory charity as part of their employment. As an employee of a non-profit, my internet bill is the same as yours, my car cost the same amount, my apartment would cost the same amount if we were living in the same area. It's very common to see people behaving as if those externalities don't apply to the people working for a non-profit and therefore concluding that workplace expectations of pay should be substantially different.
I think it's good to look at non-profit effectiveness, but I think that evaluation defies most of the simple solutions. At my office, we have a 17% administration rate, which means that $17 goes toward admin costs for every $100 we spend. That's pretty good in the industry, but our actual rate would be much better--see, the \"administrators\" who make up most of that 17% are people who run our volunteer program, which brings in about 11,000 hours of donated time every year. That time doesn't appear on our budget or on our effectiveness reports.
Should we judge Google's effectiveness by whether you'd be willing to take a 50% pay cut next year?", "timestamp": "1353014900"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338250469606418", "anchor": "fb-338250469606418", "service": "fb", "text": "@David: \"How do you know if somebody is working for below market rates?\"
You don't always, maybe not even usually. If someone left a high paying job to found a charity, though, I think that's a strong signal that they're committed to what they're doing. If from what you know about their background they could probably be making much more than they are at the charity they're at, that's a weaker signal. If all you know is that they're \"paid 80% of the median market rate for the field\", that's a very weak signal, probably not worth paying attention to.", "timestamp": "1353017701"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338252712939527", "anchor": "fb-338252712939527", "service": "fb", "text": "@Hollis: \"people who are willing to work for less do better work\"
I don't think this is true in general. If I put out an ad for people to do nearly anything and advertised below market rates, I would expect to get worse applicants than if I were willing to pay the going rate or better. Being willing to work for less simultaneously measures many things aside from commitment, like desperation and lack of alternatives, which are of course not what you want. In the case of a charity founder or executive, who could clearly be working for more elsewhere, it may be a good proxy for how important they think the work is.", "timestamp": "1353018361"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338254009606064", "anchor": "fb-338254009606064", "service": "fb", "text": "@Hollis: \"At my office, we have a 17% administration rate, which means that $17 goes toward admin costs for every $100 we spend.\"
The cost effectiveness of your office is how much good you accomplish per marginal dollar coming in. I agree that the \"17% administration rate\" figure is nearly meaningless, but it's far from the best we can do. A better-but-still-rough approximation would be dividing the total cost of your organization by the number of people that would commit suicide if your organization didn't exist. (That's the goal of your organization, right?)", "timestamp": "1353018736"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338254379606027", "anchor": "fb-338254379606027", "service": "fb", "text": "\"Should we judge Google's effectiveness by whether you'd be willing to take a 50% pay cut next year?\"
You shouldn't donate to Google. Considered as a charity Google is not very effective.", "timestamp": "1353018848"}, {"author": "Hollis", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338257126272419", "anchor": "fb-338257126272419", "service": "fb", "text": "One of them, yes. The broader and less-outcome-focused mission is that nobody in our region should have to suffer alone. There are more specific sub-missions.
Measuring the effect of social services is pretty hard: for example, in our suicide prevention mission, we almost certainly save many more lives than we know about--because people call us in severe crisis thinking about suicide, answer \"no\" to the questions about suicide, but still get help from the supportive listening... and then go on to live happy productive lives. Everyone in the field agrees that the effect is larger than what we can measure, but there's real debate on how to approximate it.
That said, I've been using an idea similar to yours for the last few years. We have hard evidence that we save a small number of people from suicide every year--because we help facilitate active rescue, because our mobile crisis team visits them and they change their minds about suicide, etc. Let's call it 35 people a year, which is a very low estimate. Our annual budget is about $242,000, which comes out to $6,914 per life saved. That seems like a lot.
However, we got ahold of a Canadian study that attempted to quantify the economic cost of suicide deaths in the US and Canada. Their figure, which we all agree is extremely conservative, is that a single suicide death costs society about $500,000 in terms of lost salary, lost taxation, funeral expenses, governmental death services, therapy, etc. (Again, that number is really low--my salary at current rates is worth $1.3 million between now and retirement at age 72, and most people make more than I do). Anyway, by that measure, we spend $242k every year and prevent $17.5 million in suicide related economic losses, which gives us a 7200% return on investment.
I agree that executive compensation is an important part of determining whether a non-profit is \"effective\", although it's important not to put too much weight on it. Another way I'd propose for you to consider: assume that executives work a 40 hour week, and assume that the lowest people on their pay scale work 40 hours a week at something between minimum wage and $20 per hour depending on the location and field. Calculate the ratio of executive pay to lowest-person pay, and if it's more than, say, 6:1, ask yourself what that executive is bringing to the table that makes him/her worth so much more than line workers. Get the GuideStar reports and find out how many hypothetical minimum-wage staff are equal to the top five listed employees.", "timestamp": "1353019635"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1353073799693", "service": "gp", "text": "@Lucas\n\u00a0At least in a state like MA where charitable contributions are non-deductible\u00a0at the state level it's more efficient to request a lower salary than to donate money back to your organization. \u00a0That aside, I think you're right that donating back\u00a0indicates\u00a0commitment more strongly than just a lower salary.", "timestamp": 1353073799}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338466299584835", "anchor": "fb-338466299584835", "service": "fb", "text": "@Hollis: \"a single suicide death costs society about $500,000\"
Some things in your list seem like you're not preventing them, just postponing them. Funeral expenses, for example. I'd be curious to read the study if you can dig it up.", "timestamp": "1353081023"}, {"author": "Hollis", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/338209186277213?comment_id=338481056250026", "anchor": "fb-338481056250026", "service": "fb", "text": "True that funeral expenses come to everyone, but (without being too graphic), suicide deaths tend to come with a much bigger price tag because there's often a lot more work to be done before people are presentable.
The Canadian study we started from is reported in http://suicideinfo.ca/LinkClick.aspx... (or http://suicideinfo.ca/Lib.../Resources/SIECAlertArchive.aspx , alert #74, if the other link dies). We did some alignment of information, scaled things for the current US suicide rates, etc.", "timestamp": "1353084118"}]}